“Rockstar”… Angst in the Pants

We’re lucky if we get one grand, eccentric, moody, what-were-they-thinking love story that raises a middle finger to audience attention spans and the whispered wisdom that this is what this star’s fans will pay to see him in – and we thought that Pankaj Kapur’s Mausam, this year, filled that slightly suicidal slot. But here’s Imtiaz Ali’s Rockstar, which is so similar in tone and temperament that a time-pressed reviewer need do nothing more than yoke the two in the same sentence. “If you liked Mausam, you will love Rockstar. If you hated Mausam, then stay far, far away.” When we see or read about other people’s love stories, we seek only the highlights: jab they met, how he proposed, when they first did it. “Give us the good parts,” we say. “Leave out the boring bits, where nothing happens.” But from our own love stories, we know that the boring bits are what it’s all about – the restlessness, the annihilating uncertainty, the clock on the wall whose hands refuse to budge as we pace the room and pray to the spirits, awaiting an answer. These boring bits (which may be unendurable for others) are the hellish fires in which a certain kind of love is forged, and Pankaj Kapur and Imtiaz Ali, in their respective films, document this process, this slow process, through which men and women prove themselves transcendentally worthy of love. These films say that you may fall in love easily, but you have to work very hard to earn the happily-ever-after. They are fairy tales with a core of cold steel, as much the stuff of dreams as our worst nightmares.

Like Mausam, Rockstar enshrines the notion of romance as a slow-burning flame that sears the soul, and like Shahid Kapoor, Ranbir Kapoor loses his heart to a somewhat remote beauty and trawls through time and space (across continents, actually) in pursuit of a horribly idealised, often self-destructive love. Both men are slowly stripped of their innocence, their vigour and good humour, and both films feature a malady that is healed not through medicine but by the magic of love. Both films feature a scene where lovers reunite in a European city, and this reunion isn’t marked by squeals of elation but with a near-existential shrug of acceptance, as if this meeting were inevitable, ordained by destiny. They could be ordering soup. And both films are narrated elliptically, as if flipping through a scrapbook of emotions; because the scenes are cut short and we aren’t shown everything, we feel, sometimes, a little disoriented about the chronology. (Perhaps that’s what makes them timeless love stories.) Both Mausam and Rockstar are operatic films that play out in a remarkably non-hysterical fashion (save for a few outbursts), and the experience is like listening to LaBohème as performed by Bob Dylan in his folk-guitar phase. Thunder-and-lightning material, the fodder of florid arias, is rendered casually, like a troubadour’s ballad. This apparent disconnect between form and content (which, of course, exists only in the mind, for there’s nothing that says movies have to be made only one way) is perhaps what’s causing the audience to tune out. In both films, I was surrounded by viewers who, after a point, could take it no more, and began to hoot and jeer. But I left both films on a near-spiritual high, as if cleansed of the grime that sticks to us after a few too many bubblegummy love stories. Like Mausam, Rockstar is some kind of crazy-great movie.

The no-pain-no-gain philosophy of attaining love, in Rockstar, extends to Ranbir Kapoor’s music. (He plays an amateur musician named Janardhan who evolves into the snarling titular creature, answering to Jordan.) Janardhan is advised early on, that a real artist makes his art through angst, and it is this pain he seeks when he playfully proclaims his love to the Kashmiri played by newcomer Nargis Fakhri, whose character is named Heer. (As soon as we alight on this name, we realise that the director isn’t after just any love story, but something monumental and mythic. Heer, like her legendary counterpart, comes from a wealthy family, and Janardhan, like Ranjha, plays a musical instrument and falls afoul of his brothers and takes solace, at some point, in spirituality.) Janardhan reasons that Heer will reject him, and, as a result, his ridiculously happy life – whose highlights he enumerates in an amusing monologue – will wince with its first pinch of pain. She rejects him all right, but he doesn’t feel anything because he wasn’t all that invested in her approval in the first place. She was simply a means to an end, and that end was pain. And then, she becomes the end. They gradually drift into love, almost without realising it, and their early happiness recedes into a distant memory. Ali likes to complicate the relationships in his films by having one half of the couple engaged or wedded elsewhere, and here too, Heer is all set to marry someone so smooth-jawed he might be a shaving-cream model. That’s when Janardhan begins to skate on razorblades, really transforming into a lovesick Ranjha.

Rockstar is a sprawling ode to the cliché that we should be careful what we ask the gods for, for they may actually grant us our wish. (In other words, the only thing worse than not getting what you want is getting what you want.) Jordan wants pain in order to create music, and he ends up with so much pain that even when he’s mobbed by fans – which is every musician’s dream, and it certainly was his – all he can think about, talk about is this pain. He is in thrall to this pain; there’s nothing in his life but this pain. And Heer is the ethereal balm. When her mother asks him to step away from her daughter’s side, he doesn’t say “Main nahin jaaoonga” but “Main nahin jaa paaoonga.” This isn’t sullen defiance but abject helplessness, for when she’s not around to alleviate his pain, he goes mad, like an addict denied his fix. He beats up cops. He throws up on the red carpet. He barks at the media. He tears up a contract and showers the pieces of paper like confetti on a music-label executive, chanting wedding incantations. He cancels concerts, preferring to sing along with prostitutes in the midst of a whorehouse. He is unable to function without her, and she is literally unable to survive without him.

Rockstar is perhaps the worst title Imtiaz Ali could have given his film, for it makes us anticipate a blistering saga of a musician and his music, while in actuality, this is the fanciful chronicle of a lover – a morbidly obsessed romantic who just happens to be a musician. When that music-label executive sacks Jordan because he is unable to pour himself into someone else’s composition, a shehnai maestro (Shammi Kapoor) explains that Jordan is destined for great things, that he is a bada jaanwar who cannot be caged in this chhota pinjra. We think, of course, that he’s talking about Jordan’s music, but this metaphor is equally true about Jordan’s love, which is too big to be bound to this prosaic world, with its frustratingly logical rules. That is why Jordan and Heer need their own world, which springs up around them when they lie in bed, under snow-white covers, oblivious to everything else. (Ali’s ugliest touch in the film is where he labels this sentiment, with a Rumi quote floating across a representation of their togetherness in an Elysian eternity; this visual instantly congeals into calendar-art kitsch.)

When Jordan is with Heer, it’s magic, and when they embrace, he calls it a “magic touch.” (That is why it’s a mistake that, after Jordan visits a bedridden Heer, her mother exults that her blood count is better. Such mundaneness has no business in this realm of magic. Heer has become better simply because Jordan is near her.) Heer, too, is some sort of bada jaanwar – her love for Jordan is so oversized that it transcends the chhota pinjra of her marriage to her shaving-cream-model husband. We don’t judge her when she cheats on this man; we just wonder why she doesn’t drop him, and why she is so invested in keeping up appearances in that clearly broken marriage. In Ali’s eyes, Jordan and Heer appear to be as pure and as single-minded in their desire (and as unconcerned about man-made social norms) as animals, and I think he puts these words in Jordan’s mouth during a concert, where Jordan says that the city came about because a jungle was felled, and he’s still searching for a displaced flock of pigeons, those nadaan parindey, whose shadow falls on both the name of his concert tour (“Wings on Fire”) as well as an early song (Phir se ud chala) where he dreams of flight.

But even if Jordan needn’t have been a musician for this movie to work, his story is undoubtedly charted through AR Rahman’s music, which fits the narrative far better than it serves as a standalone listening experience. (Every time I heard the songs, I had that close-but-no-cigar feeling.) In Imtiaz Ali’s ingenious conceit, the film moves from lightheartedness to heavy-duty angst, and the music correspondingly progresses from the playful Katiya karoon to the questing Kun faaya kun (which leads to the “miracle” of Jordan being signed by a recording label) to the exuberant Hawa hawa to the first stirrings of the much-sought-after pain in Meri bebasi ka bayaan hai to the primal howls of Sadda haq. (And somewhere in between Ali references his own song, Thoda thoda pyaar from Love Aaj Kal, now transformed into a disco-bhajan.) Early on, after being slapped around by cops for playing his soft, gentle music in a public space, Jordan complains to his friends that Jim Morrison raised a middle finger at the audience and was hailed a visionary, while he’s being hauled up for nothing. By the end, as this angry rock star is being led away by cops, he raises a middle finger to the crowds. He has his pain; he’s become his idol.

It is intriguing – and inevitably a comment on our Westernised times – that angst is equated with rock, as if the only accompaniment to a soul in torment is a wailing electric guitar. I kept thinking of homegrown expressions of a turbulent inner life, in songs like Waqt ne kiya and Beshaq mandir masjid todo – but as soon as the thought slipped into my head I realised that that kind of angst has few takers today. You ain’t a broken human being unless you emulate Jim Morrison – and Ranbir Kapoor is exceptionally good as this shattered songster. He probably overdoes the googly-eyed innocence in the early scenes, but his depiction of a singer is one of the truest in the movies. When he strives for a high note, his eyes scrunch up and the cords in his neck jut out like jumper cables. At other times, he delivers a line and then steps back, eyes closed, mimicking an artist who is in the zone, possessed by the music, and sometimes he nods appreciatively, knowing that he’s pulled off something great. He shows us the strain of creating music and then he shows us that he savours it.

His story is narrated in an overlapping structure that goes back and forth in time, with signpost scenes that are repeated in order to guide us, and this looks like a stunt. At first, it appears that this splintered timeline is a function of the journalist named Sheena (Aditi Rao Hydari). After Heer gets married and leaves, Jordan too disappears from the picture, and we see Sheena interviewing his friends and business associates about his whereabouts. At this point, I thought Ali was after something like Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine, whose fractured narrative follows from a journalist’s investigation into a rock star’s disappearance (and that structure, of course, harks back to Citizen Kane, the granddaddy of piecing-together-a-life movies). But soon, Sheena drops her investigation – rather, we return to Jordan’s point of view. We no longer need to piece together information about him, and the purpose of this slightly taxing structure is unclear. We are already kept guessing by the short length of the scenes and their truncation before they play out to the point of conventional dramatic satisfaction, and this additional layer of looping-back complexity is not organic. It doesn’t seem to rise from any real narrative need.

But then, what does? Practically nothing in Rockstar is done the way its story synopsis would appear to demand, and this blithe abandonment of convention is what makes this love story sing. The only sustained note of discord is the heroine, who was no doubt chosen because she looks like the Kashmiri that Heer is. She is passable in the early scenes, where she drags Jordan to the decrepit Amar Talkies to watch Jungli Jawani – later, when he remarks that she could have been raped, she jokes that that would have been Jungli Jawani Part 2. And in one of the film’s finest love scenes (and there are many fine, talky love scenes to choose from), she comes close to declaring her feelings for Jordan while dressed up in blood-red bridal finery – he wonders aloud, laughing, if she hasn’t fallen for him, and her eyes mist up as she deflects the question. But as the film becomes mired in its madness, her inadequacies become increasingly apparent. (Though, to be fair, I tried to imagine who else could have played this part, and I couldn’t come up with a name.) She’s fine as a creamy physical object of desire, but we don’t see her as a woman possessed. As her condition worsens, she keeps fainting daintily, as if auditioning for a remake of The Princess and the Pea. Had her performance matched Ranbir’s, their film might have been as out-of-this-world as their love.

I will say, I was waiting for your review of this movie and I think its one of your best. As in your previous reviews, you have again linked up and connected some parts of the movie which I failed to do while watching and its great to read them now, which makes me think to revisit this movie once more.

Nice review! I love the fact that you nailed the very specific word choice in Janardhan’s exchange with Heer’s mother.

I wonder if Heer is meant to be viewed as a quasi-mythical creature who was fleshed out in greater detail in the hero’s mind than in reality. The whole list-making business, for instance, is replete with items that are a lot sleazier than the characters themselves appear capable of. A bullet-point embodiment of the Madonna-Whore dichotomy, if you will. It’s as if Imtiaz wanted to create not so much a real character as a bespoke heart-breaker for Janardhan.

tejas: Reg. “I think all Heer Ranjha films are doomed to have bad actresses of varying degrees.” Hahahahahaha! I swear! But there was one with Sridevi, no? I haven’t seen it though 🙂

Ramsu: I didn’t think of her as mythical — their love was treated as mythical, i thought. Incidentally, I was telling someone yesterday, that Indian audiences can accept 100% reality and 100% fantasy, but this in-between “magical realism”-type thing (for lack of a better word), they simply have no patience for.

About the list-making appearing sleazier, I think it wouldn’t have been all that inappropriate had a good actress played the part. Out of her mouth, everything sounded weird. Do you know if she was dubbed?

agree on the inappropriateness of the title. also i didnt quite walk away with the impression that the pain made him a better artist and maybe that wasnt the point at all but then the title leads you in that direction. instead of albums flying off shelves due to negative publicity, a link between the pain and its expression through music perhaps? a wanna be rockstar becoming a great in love-artist?

Did you realise that Kun Faaya Kun is embedded in a flashback within a flashback. And if you consider the whole film as a flashback, it makes Kun Faaya Kun embedded in a triple-nested flashback. As you say “It doesn’t seem to rise from any real narrative need”, but just wondering if there’s some Sufi concept significance to embed Kun Faaya Kun so deep in the narration.

Wow! That’s one review which I never wanted to end. A bit disappointed with that “Close-but -no-cigar-feeling” comment about the music but I cannot see another contemporary Bollywood music director coming up with a ‘Phir Se Ud Chala’ in the next 10 years at least. Btw where is Amit Trivedi?

Lakshman: Oh “Phir se ud chala” is a phenomenal song. What I meant was the album as a whole. About one-half of it worked beautifully, and there was a second set of songs that were too generic. And yes, where is Amit Trivedi?

You seem to like flawed masterpieces a lot more than movies that are seemingly blemish less! Maybe that allows to focus on the pluses more? But frankly, I was the only one out of a bunch of seven people who liked this movie; the others as you mentioned were hooting and jeering sometime into the second half. This was an experiential movie for me more than anything I have seen recently. The typical Imtiaz Ali flourishes and effortless staging of the love story kept me hooked in the first half but it is really when the story descends into that reckless second half that I started rooting for the movie. I can’t put my finger on one standout moment that led to this transformation but it in a way came in that infinitesimal, inexorable manner. By the end of it was such a churning that I had to see it again and believe it or not it was wonderful. There was no disrespectful howling this time as the theater audience seemed magically more attuned to the film’s sensibilities than the earlier show’s one. I was never a believer in the it-will-grow-on-you mantra even for songs, so giving that kind of treatment to a movie was out of question. Strangely, I did and Ali is one of the few directors possibly who deserves that kind of respect. And I’m happy to have done so.

Thank you, Sir.
Your review does full justice to the film and practically agree with almost everything said here. Needless to say, I enjoyed the film tremendously. And, apparently you did too.
Re: he doesn’t say “Main nahin jaaoonga” but “Main nahin jaa paaoonga.” – a great example of several moments like this which makes one overlook some of the weaknesses of the film.

Brilliantly written..Its very rare that people understand movies so well, everyone sees what they see and fail to understand the underlying feelings and emotions…Glad that someone has done that and been able to express it so well in his writing..Hats off sir..
This is what every artist makes movies for..

I didn’t like the movie (posted my version of the review on my blog), but I loved the way you wrote. Every single point that I felt was flawed or dissed , you have supported, and in a very convincing way. 🙂

But yes, one place we both agree – It sure is about angst in the pants :).

Hmm… Thinking of going to the cinemas for this one. Been long since I went to a theater to watch a Hindi film. Found the soundtrack mostly ho-hum but the film’s reviews have, by and large, been favourable. And I did like Imtiaz Ali’s earlier two offerings(well, perhaps not LAK so much but definitely JWM).

And people who frowned at Vikram’s “performance” in DTM and Vishal’s in Avan Ivan are now speculating that Ranbir Kapoor may win the National Award for his role in Rockstar, so that should count for something.

I think I will watch it soon. If only to come back and bash you thoroughly on your review. 😉

Rangan, I have absolutely the same opinion about the film, the angst, the pain, the loneliness, the music, the dialogue and the heroine. My only thing was Aditi Rao was probably a late add when Ali saw that the second half was going nowhere with Fakhri in charge as the heroine. If only she had been a great actress, I completely agree with you that this would have been an out of the world film!

Note the following??

1. Parindey having an Eagle’s shadow – the state of his mind and music!
2. The complete non – understanding of his responsibility as a superstar – the invitation to recklessness/pain
3. The raising the head towards divinity being done at his final concert too, he’s still enjoying his music, but wants to keep the pain beside him, so the public act!!
4. The fast and purposeful walk as he gets better as a superstar – the determination to succeed and invite more pain.
5. The continuous addition of motifs on his body and guitar, remembrances that he wishes to carry around like Nostradamus..
6. The impatience with friends – keeping up his act that he had momentarily forgotten and was being good again..

msrikantt: I wouldn’t call this a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination. But yes, as I grow older I find myself getting more impatient with films with a “story” and I seem to enjoy films that deliver — as you call it — something experiential.

Bravo Brangan. This is exactly the patented style you are known for- I am glad u are in your form in this review. Ur best reviews like this one always gives the viewer he thought that ‘i know that even for a moment thought about it’ but then u capture it in words which is a phenomenal description of that particular thought even if the scene lasted only a second or so. U bring out the audience’s subconscious on paper.

amazing review…only realized the destructive side of passion when viewing …now when i look back, feel like I need to watch it again…however, that said, think if movie could not convey what it intended to then probably it has missed its mark…again that is subjective as most of us including self may not be that enlightened 🙂

“But as the film becomes mired in its madness, her inadequacies become increasingly apparent. (Though, to be fair, I tried to imagine who else could have played this part, and I couldn’t come up with a name.) ” – thats bang-on!

I just watched it again and loved it even more (I was able to look past Nargis’s acting skills this time!)… your review is brilliant, btw, among your best. I wish more film writing was this insightful!

As always, very enjoyable review. Although I agree with a lot of the points you made, it seems you enjoyed the movie far more than I could.

The biggest mistake was, as you put it, naming the movie Rockstar. I could see the artist’s traits in his nature, not being able to articulate himself well with words – like his initial attempts at wooing the girl, imbibing very easily the music in his surroundings – like the folk music scene in Prague or at Hazrat ali, being driven more by instincts than by thought – like barging into her house to say goodbye. But none of that was pursued to effectively show us how it turned him into the guy whose face is sold on T-shirts and for whom the girls tear their clothes and scream. I mean seriously, what part of his angst transformed him into screaming “O eco-friendly nature ke rakshak… sadda haq aitthe rakh”?

I think it was certainly a good attempt to give the movie a surrealist feel, with the whole non-linear storytelling and cutting short of scenes. But it splashed cold water on a lot of scenes by suddenly falling down to the level of filmy. What was the need for explaining the blood count? Or giving the hero an additional source of pain by having his family accuse him of stealing and kicking him out?

And for a fire of passion so all-consuming, don’t you think it grew pretty slowly? I mean the first half of the movie was so disconnected from the second half, what with him helping out in her wedding like Raj Malhotra’s little brother, and their casual goodbye. And some time later suddenly he hears Prague and goes “shit, I totally forgot about that crazy chick who is now burning a hole in my heart… I must have her!”

I guess it was a case of pretty good parts coming together to make not a that great movie. Thanks for highlighting those parts.

i think this film deals with the pain and anger within a character. once jj wants to become a rockstar but after becoming it..he tried to escapes this image. and break it in front of media. boundries and contracts is meaningless to him so he dare to sing in front of a child and a badnam basti…nice review.!..

1. Your review has done justice to the film – thank you.
2. Reg. angst related only to rock music – I thought Mr. Ali alluded to that in Kun Faya Kun when JJ plays with the dargah musicians and also at the Devi jagran – that that is also music that moves, and all these people are also undergoing their own pains and trials…just that they don’t bring attention to it.
3. I perceived Heer as more willful than passionate…a very conflicted character, more than the previous female characters in Mr. Ali’s films. But such is life.
4. I thought Sadda Haq was meant to be more about Jordan than the world…but the world takes it to be as theirs…like a lot in celebrity life is misunderstood or misappropriated. He does say ‘O Eco friendly, nature ke rakshak, main bhi nature hoon…’
5. You are absolutely right that the music has more impact within the film than by itself.
6. I thought the ‘story’ in this film is in the by-products of the original goal – love happened, stardom happened, messy life happened.
7. No comments on the open-ended ending?

brangan…. very nicely written review, as usual – although my take will have to be a blemish on any data used to test your prediction that opinions on Mausam and Rockstar are positively correlated 🙂 . I saw Mausam in large part due to your review and I liked it (with some reservations), but I felt much less positive about Rockstar—- or at least the second half which did not work for me at all. After a promising, enjoyable first half, it seemed like Imtiaz Ali was torn between telling two different stories – a updated version of Heer-Ranjha and the biopic of a sufi rockstar. I don’t agree that his being a musician was incidental to the story. He could have been any kind of artist- a painter, writer or sculptor, but I don’t think he could’ve been say a fighter pilot for this story to work! The notion that thwarted passion and great anguish fuel great creativity (which was dealt with in a light vein in the first half) was definitely a central theme in the movie and soundtrack supported that notion. In the end both stories – epic romance and tortured artist – felt half-baked.

As for your question on if not Nargis who, my answer is almost anyone — she was astonishingly bad. I do think Anushka Sharma would have been a credible choice. In fact my other big quibble with Imtiaz Ali is on some extremely dodgy casting decisions – Nargis being the most significant. Notably, the Brazilian Model who played the Stepford husband, his entire Stepford family, the women who seemed to have stepped out of an OTT Bhansali melodrama – Shernaz Patel, Heer’s sister dragged down the second half considerably. Imitiaz Ali’s supporting characters are usually excellent in the way they’re written and cast, so this was surprising.

“But yes, as I grow older I find myself getting more impatient with films with a “story” ”

Uh oh! Does this mean we can can no longer look forward to you appreciating films that do not profess lofty ambitions, but just tell a good story in a good, engaging way? Surely those films do not deserve ‘impatience’ just because they are not “experimental”?

AJ: Actually, after the first few scenes, I kinda knew that this wasn’t going to be a rockstar story at all, so I wasn’t as bothered by the rock bits being somewhat vague. The love portions worked for me and that was enough. About “giving the hero an additional source of pain by having his family accuse him of stealing and kicking him out, ” I think that was to mirror Ranjha’s story, the quarrel with his brothers and all. And it’s not like he hears Prague and remembers her — it was always there, I guess, in a corner of his mind and he thought there’s nothing he can do about it. But when the Prague offer came up, he kinda jumped at it. The problem (or benefit, depending on how you look at it) with this kind of elliptical storytelling is that not everything is told in a way the builds on previous scenes. Sometimes we just have to take fragments as a given — or not.

jussomebody/Maru: I don’t know why everybody thinks I’m saying Mausam is as good/bad as Rockstar. That’s an imaginary time-pressed critic I’m talking about in the first para, and those are his words in quotes, not mine — and you could have very different reactions to the films 🙂 But yes, there’s a truckload of similarities in plot points and mood and structure, which I’ve tried to point out in the second para. Another one I missed — both films have a heroine who’s shown in just one scene as a dancer. Spooky!

Flutterby: Uh, perhaps I was too traumatised by the Rumi quote to have an opinion on the open-endedness? 🙂

Abhirup: I hope not. But these crazy-great movies have a special appeal for me, whether Hindi or Tamil (Aalavandhan, Aayirathil Oruvan) or English or Foreign. Perhaps because they don’t happen all that often.

Maru: Yes, I meant some kind of artist — not fighter pilot.

Milind: No da, 87. But you know that right? You did come to the party :-p

Great review BR..had the exact same feelings about the movie ..I swear 🙂
Could have been called “Accountant” and it would still been the love story of an idiot with anger management issues.
As much as I loved the “parallel love stories separated by an era” concept in Love Aaj Kal, this one with the story jumping back and forth was just wonderful. Ali got that right
That girl was the weakest link, making Deepika Padukone look like Shabana Azmi.
Ranbir was phenomenal…just too good.

Haven’t seen Mausam, I was actually harked back to Dil Se, which worked on a similar premise of all consuming love, set of course to some of Rahman’s greatest tunes. (“Aur Ho” channelising “Tu Hi Tu” !)

While the love story worked for me very well and the whole non linear back and forth being mildly interesting, a little more detail on the evolution of his music. As in how does a guy go from “Jo bhi main” to “Hawaa hawaa” to “Sadda haq” would have made this a master piece.

Guess Ranbir is the new Shivaji Ganesan, guy looked bloody real as a singer

Aint we missing a point – Janardhan is no Ranjha he refuses to commit when Heer asks to run away as a bride and when he just wants to say bye instead of come with me while leaving Prague and again when she is not able to respond to his touch in coma he leaves knowing very well that he has reached the ultimate state of pain he can ever be in. In this context youe Nadan Parinda para just fits in perfect.

It felt more like free-flowing to me. It gelled with the movie very well. Never felt gimmicky at any stage.

Imtiaz’s best yet. Ranbir Kapoor…what to say? Simply blown away by his performance. Except in a couple of scenes where, as you correctly point out, he “over-does the google-eyed” Janardhan, his acting is PHENOMENAL.

And you’re right in saying that Rahman’s music sounds better as a part of the film rather than a stand-alone experience. Though when exiting the cinema hall, only two songs Nadaan Parindey and Tum Ho really stood out. And I really don’t feel Nargis is so bad. She was certainly a good deal better than the Kareenas and Katrinas of our industry.

Talking about cliches, did you notice that Imtiaz Ali’s female leads are always feisty tomboyish carefree souls(or atleast start out that way)?

And Rangan, if you ever interview Rahman again, could you ask him why he has a habit of using the opening riffs of his songs as BGM instead of composing separate background scores? Tum Ho, Phir Se Ud Chala and Aur Ho all figured in that list. Not that I minded that much. They were pleasant enough and more importantly, fairly suited to the situations. But SURELY, an artist of ARR’s caliber shouldn’t have stopped composing bgm’s.

His BG score in Rhythm was superb. I miss the ARR of those days. I used to instantly like his music during those times. Now, like a potted plant, I have to water it, allow it lots of air and sunshine and wait for it to grow, and get disappointed in the end when only some songs grow and others don’t despite MY best efforts. 😉

Anyways, will be watching this movie again.

And, Rangan, do try not to equate movies. It is frequently insulting to either one or the other movie and is the hallmark of a B-grade critic, which you surely aren’t.

Comparisons on one or two points is fine, but saying things like “If you hated that, stay far away from this” is killing the very essence of criticism, which should be as much as possible based on the individual films’s merits/demerits.

From the title of your review to its tone and contents, I gathered you have written it in your “condescending” mood, which is unfortunate, since this movie certainly doesn’t deserve that.

Right, Dil Se, though here the love was metaphoric of mainstream vs. marginal political violence. Mani Ratnam possibly our first modern great to use the obsessive love metaphor to represent something larger more closer to the Marquez variety of politico magical-realism even if this is a stretch.
Ali is more pure romantic love guru and Rockstar is his most ambitious effort. His trajectory of on-screen love stories get more complex with each passing film. Much to rejoice
BR, you are right about our ‘purist’ rejection of reality-fantasy combo. The wonderful Dil Se too bombed. So true about Nargis as the possible best fit. She’s ethe-real! Ms Bhatia, really !!!
What a stupendous review! I hope the movie is given a chance. Where I saw peeps were squirming!

I remember you referring to Abhay Deol as a lazy actor. In that respect, I would say that Imitiaz Ali in Rockstar comes across as lazy director, one who takes no extra effort to ensure that the audience has the all the information needed to get it.

‘Condescending mood’, tsk tsk, unfortunate use of the term for this review.
And comparisons are delicious… they connect metaphors otherwise so elusive! This review does it that way… not the school teacher way!

@brangan:
“jussomebody/Maru: I don’t know why everybody thinks I’m saying Mausam is as good/bad as Rockstar. That’s an imaginary time-pressed critic I’m talking about in the first para, and those are his words in quotes, not mine — and you could have very different reactions to the films”

…. and we can be forgiven for seeing you as the time-pressed critic, no? After all you made a very credible case for the similarities in both movies (nice catch with the dancer in 1 scene, btw) and ultimately taste. Netflix and ilk focus so heavily on developing models to accurately predict user tastes and here you are backing away from the exercise altogether 😉

The movie wonderfully brings out how an artiste’s creation is inspired by personal angst and how the audience starts interpreting the same in their own way. Sadda Haq becomes a clarion call for Tibetans, Sikhs, teenagers etc while it was a personal cry for freedom.

The non-linearity of the screenplay worked very well. Both the movie and the protagonist seem to be directionless ,flawed & don’t pander to the audience, while in their minds , they know exactly where they are headed and what they are doing .

taking the right to question you as granted (from your previous article :D), i would like to know why you chose to explain the premise of the film this time around. Your approach has mostly been into speaking about the intricacies & nuances and not reporting the content right? is it because you wanted to provide the readers a little more clarity on the content thanks to the intentionally taxing format of the film, so that you can move forward in analysing the film with that as the base?

As about the structuring of the film – i think it was done to point the middle finger at people who wants explanations to satiate their movie experience 😉 why should i explain things when i can go about linking only the emotions – after all emotions are concocted rite

Neways, am glad you questioned the intention to use rock as the form of expressing pain – is it the western influence? will they make JKB a pop/rock musician if they ever were to remake sindhu bhairavi? :-O

“But I left both films on a near-spiritual high, as if cleansed of the grime that sticks to us after a few too many bubblegummy love stories”… wow, I cant think of any other film critic who can write like this…great piece as usual..I havent seen the film but I keep coming back to most of your reviews..
maybe because your writing is a literary equivalent of those unique and experimental films that you are partial to- for me..

“…he playfully proclaims his love to the Kashmiri played by newcomer Nargis Fakhri, whose character is named Heer.”

The problem (likely only for me) though is that no Kashmiri girl would be named Heer! As silly and petty as it sounds, this sort of..cultural tone-deafness is one of the reasons I haven’t bothered to see the movie. I guess I’m just tired of Kashmir and Kashmiris being used as exotic props in Hindi films without even an attempt at truly engaging or reflecting the culture. 😦

@BR: Enjoyed the review and thoroughly enjoyed the movie too (which I saw before the review). Don’t know about the comparisons with Mausam, since I haven’t seen that film, but loved Rockstar for Ranbir’s raw performance and the amazing Sufiyana rock rendered by the trio of Irshad Kamil – Mohit Chauhan – AR Rahman! Nargis worked as the otherworldly beauty but she’s no actor and that is obvious from the first scene she appears in. However, that didn’t prove a dampener for me since I have stopped expecting any acting from Bollywood heroines – at least Nargis did better than donning 1/2 inch skirts. Your take on the shaving-cream model will surely hurt the bloke – after all, he was doing what women in our films are supposed to be: lovely statues. Kudos to Imtiaz Ali for queering that pitch!

I don’t particularly agree with your take on angst equated with rock. The rock in this film is very Sufiyana (Rumi being an obvious influence) and Jordan does with his music what Rabbi Shergill did with the wildly popular Bullah ki jaana – except, of course, Jordan is a film hero and way more angsty. I have no problems with this version of rock – who does angst better than Mirza Ghalib or for that matter, the Punjabi poets? So, if someone can find a way to make them contemporary and therefore connect with people, great!

And if Jim Morrison raised a middle finger, Baba Bulleh Shah in 17th century dressed a s a woman and danced at dargahs – there is more than one way to be a rebel 🙂

Off-topic: Did you by any chance watch Ram Gopal Varma’s latest flick “Not a Love Story”? Would love your thoughts on the movie if you have watched it. Certainly worth a Bullet Point Review on your blog, imho.

Harish S Ram: Why do some films make you write one way, while other films make you write another way? An unanswerable question. Like I said earlier — I think in a comment in an earlier post — the architecture of the piece is what’s conscious. The para links, how to begin/end, and so on. What I feel like writing about the film is unconscious, and not premeditated — as in, I don’t say “this is what I’m going to talk about.” Pretty much everything that strikes me while writing the film (thanks to the little guy inside who sits inside my subconscious) ends up here, which is why these are sometimes long pieces.

Mambazha Manidhan: OMG! I’m sitting at my desk at work and trying to stifle my uncontrollable laughter. Dude, you and I should begin work pronto on “Arre O Sambar Part 2: The Return of the Indhiya Kadi-magan.”

Shalini: I see your point — and I wish that Tamil characters, for instance, were not instantly reduced to Subramaniams. (I mean, there are so many other names, even if you want to get stereotypical). But in this particular case, I don’t know if it should be taken realistically. Anyway, that’s a bigger debate.

Incidentally, I met this Tamil kid the other day who was named Aashirwad — and you have to be from these parts to know how unusual that is 🙂

Manreet Sodhi Someshwar: Oh I agree that this is the kind of music that connects with people. I even said so.

This, from this article here, is as nice a way of looking at a critic’s function as any I’ve read:

– It has ever fallen to critics and journalists to create new ways of looking at new things, to relate the message of art to audience. The artist (or the scientist, or the politician) is necessarily absorbed in his own craft. The critic’s concern by contrast is the audience, which includes himself… He fashions his own experiences into a kind of bridge to new places we might not otherwise have cared (or maybe even dared) to visit. He creates or extends the shared experience that is the real purpose of culture…

– What we really need is a critic who has got something interesting to say. Who is writing something that we would like to read. Whose aliveness just comes out and grabs you by the throat and makes you think, or go pop-eyed with amazement, or throw your monitor across the room in a fit of rage…

– Any critic should respect the reader enough to encourage him to make up his own mind, just as if that reader were standing right in front of him.

And I really liked this comment below: “I think part of the problem Maria’s so beautifully describing here is that people now read criticism (or what passes for it) for different reasons. They don’t want to know if it’s good, or “important,” or what it says about the world; they want to know what it says about THEM, and if they’re going to like it. Whenever I see the word “relatable” in any incarnation I want to scream, because if people only engage with art they can “relate to,” nobody is ever going to learn a goddamn thing.”

the passion you have for your job (craft) is amazing!.. in almost every post of yours, you are searching for your identity in relation to your craft, and constantly amused by your own thought process and finally you extend the movie in relation to universe/how world works .. what happens as a result is people who follow this blog, very much want to think like you (and more people want to analyse movies and not just watch it saying 1st half is fast, 2nd half is slow, ranbhir kapoor overacted in 2 scenes machan types)!

Wonder if corporate people who work on excel sheets and make endless power points, be as curious about their jobs/indsutry andcan introspect as much 🙂

having said that this is a very sugarcoated review! the movie tried to be too cute for a mad love story with rock music as a premise, It was more superficial than mythical. Maybe because of Nargis’s shallow acting or the last 15-20 mins.. esp That magic touch blood count made it look like some feel good Rajkumar Hirani movie (from nowhere it came!)

VTV or Dil se made me more restless despite their flaws and in both these movies directors seemed to be more focussed on what they wanted to say!

BR, I often wonder how the ‘perisu’s at Hindu, the older reviewers, look at you and the new brigade of film reviewers whose sensibilities are forged partly by more exposure to world cinema and whose writing styles are more personal.
Do you share these links(on critic’s role etc.) with them BTW ? I wonder what they think of all this.

I can understand your fondness for what you call “crazy-great” movies, Mr. Rangan, but I do hope that these are not the only films you end up championing, for I would hate to lose the only critic in India who judges every film objectively and on the basis of what it is, be it a thoroughly mainstream commercial potboiler or a offbeat film meant for niche audiences or a film with mainstream trappings that is actually for niche audiences. Cinema, after all, has always had to do a great deal with storytelling. As much as I like the ‘experimental’ films, I would hate to lose out the ones that tell a good story. I am guessing that’s how it is with you as well.

As for ‘rockstar’, well, all I will say is that your review is way more enjoyable than the film itself.

This review echoes a comment from the “7am Arivu” review – “The talent that Baradwaj Rangan type reviewers have is that they can trash or praise any movie regardless of the actual merits of the movie.” Sugar-coated sh**.

Should I stop reading now because the piece clubs the two? I think they are differrent functions and the fact they are look at as if they are the same gives me reason to think the author is looking at criticism as a paying job, not a consuming passion.

but still,

” to create new ways of looking at new things, to relate the message of art to audience.”

What if I don’t WANT the critic to create new ways of seeing a film? what if I only want the critic to give me context and depth? or not even? what if I want the truth (the Truth) about the work of art? not alliterative obfuscation? why does this piece arrogate on behalf of ME the member of the audience the right to speak for why I want the critic to get between me and a piece of art?

” The artist (or the scientist, or the politician) is necessarily absorbed in his own craft. ” Aha! art is a profession too huh. for such “artists” the critic IS someone that provides imagination where it is lacking in the artist, I guess, Im more concerned with the Genuine article. I am talking about (for example) mona lisa when I say “art” not today’s edition of the newspaper. If we were to pretend that the print edition of a newspaper is “art” since I as the audience(the paying subscriber) would be at a loss to understand why it is so, would need a critic to “create a new way of looking at” the rag as art and “understand the message ” related by this “art. So if this is what a critic is doing, then sure! feel free! I just think that criticism has a higher calling.

“He fashions his own experiences into a kind of bridge to new places we might not otherwise have cared (or maybe even dared) to visit. He creates or extends the shared experience that is the real purpose of culture…”

or not. not every piece of dishrag thrown at you deserves all the contextual analytic richness. THE FIRST DUTY OF THE CRITIC IS TO DETERMINE AND DISCRIMINATE WHETHER THE PIECE OF “ART” DESERVES THE ATTENTION AT ALL, IN THE FIRST PLACE. I AM NOT SAYING THAT THIS IS NESCESARILY BEING USED DISCRIMINATINGLY BY CRITICS, BUT A GOOD CRITIC IS THE ONE THAT KNOWS WHY HE IS DOING THIS AND DOES IT EFFECTIVELY. writing sixty four pages of flights of delirious imagination about every piece of junk that comes your way is , in some ways a graver failure to your faithful readership than NOT writing a review at all. (the former , of course gets you paid boatloads if you are paid by the word…

” What we really need is a critic who has got something interesting to say. Who is writing something that we would like to read…..etc”

No, what we really need is a ORIGINAL FICTION WRITER who does all this. in a critic we need much more. we need relevence to Art, to the art(or the genre of art being criticised) and to this particular piece of art. (I can’t believe this has to be explained. did noone ever teach you criticism formally? Maybe a Literary crit 101 class is in order…

” people now read criticism (or what passes for it) for different reasons.”

in a time where corporate advertising passes for “free speech” I guess shilling for the production company is also considered a valid “different ” reason for “criticism”. I am not accusing brannigan of this, I am just saying that the uncritical acceptance of this comment as a “good” one leads me to believe that the bar for tolerance in this regard is set very low.

“Whenever I see the word “relatable” in any incarnation I want to scream, because if people only engage with art they can “relate to,” nobody is ever going to learn a goddamn thing.””..

and this, is the cry for help. when people look askance at WHY your piece exists (ie it is not obvious to them that it relates to the work of art or the raison d’itre of its creation,) they then say “at least give me something. tell me one relevant line about it that makes me go “Yeah! Im going to like that in the film!” In other words the commenter is railing against precisely the kind of tangential nonsense that the author advocated in the fist passage above when she wanted a critic to “create new ways of looking at new things, to relate the message of art to audience.” The commenter seems to me, to say ” Stop trying to sidle with me(the paying customer of the rag Im reading) and trying to “make nice” with me. tell me about the piece of art already! maybe if you did I would be able to find reasons for liking/ not liking it.

In Kun Faya Kun, the camera lingers for quite long over the tomb covered with flowers…can someone explain the significance/symbolism of that with regard to JJ’s situation or generally within the song, aside from the fact that the tomb is redecorated regularly? Thank you.

Its funny how nearly everyone who has taken offense has read “experiential” as “experimental”! Was just wondering about the connotations of the word crazy-great. Is it the sheer ambition and megalomania involved and a partial fulfillment of the promise that propels a film to that title? I’m assuming that you allude to the scale of the movie also when you use that term. Also if it is not a tough ask, could you give me some more films that you would call crazy great?
PS: Raavan seems to fit the bill,no?

I don’t know if someone’s pointed this our earlier, but is it just me or do you habitually quote dialogues from Hindi movies when you’re reviewing them as opposed to not so frequently with Tamil movies? Do you feel like you have to ‘prove’ you get it or something like that? Just asking,

mssrikantt: People will read what they want they to. Simple fact, no? 🙂 About crazy-great, I was thinking of a film with ambitions of being great that’s definitely all kinds of crazy as well. Like I said earlier, Aalavandhan, Aayirathil Oruvan, even Dil Se at times.

Arun: Clearly, my reviews have become conspiracy-theory fodder 🙂 See here, here and here – and earlier too, if you have time and patience.

As for “habitually” versus “not so often,” You do realise I review far more Hindi films than Tamil films, right?

When I look at Anjadhe or Aalavandhan I can sense an intent to be different(in only certain parts or aspects of the movie), thats all. I would’nt know if that equates to wanting to be great. HeyRam was probably a more ambitious effort, far less crazier than say, an Inglorious Basterds, but nevertheless trying to fictionalize history a bit, attempting some other things not frequently done in Tamil cinema at that time(in-sync sound, working off a bound screenplay, choice of music and how it was added later on, casting of Hindi actors for more authenticity etc.). And flawed as well.

“what happens as a result is people who follow this blog, very much want to think like you”: that’s exactly how I’d sum up my movie-watching experience after i started reading Mr. Rangan’s reviews (right from the days when he wrote in Madras Plus – the friday/ saturday supplement with ET, then Indian Express and now his blog).

While watching Engeyum Eppodhum, I was precisely thinking the way HE’D think (given his really wonderful analysis of Imran’s girlfriend in Jaane Tu….).

Rangan Sir, I’d really love to have your word on Anjali’s character in the film.

You also wonderfully wrote about the female taking over the male in Avan Ivan.

I didn’t realise a link for a review of Subramaniyapuram was available here till you posted it. Thank you, loved it! I remember sifting through the reviews and wanting to read it, but somehow couldn’t find it. I watched the movie for the second time recently and was stunned. As for the allegation, I just thought you quoted from Hindi movies in every other review, in comparison with Tamil reviews. The numbers angle makes a fair bit of sense, but the comment wasn’t totally about that either….

Thank you sir for such a sharp observation.I just want to add one more thing ,Sir I dont know if Imitiyaj has these thing in his mind or not but it seems to me that in the song sadda haq Imitiyaz experimented with the form brilliantly where he connected the character’s anger with the public anger.And suddenly people from kashmir to tibbat were shown during the song.For me imitiyaz has started a new form of cinema where narrative of the lead character coneects with the characters outside the cinema and thus the scene seems to me highly deliberative, it uses a politics of anger to connect with real life situation of the million of people. The boundary between the cinematic narrative and real life narrative of the people watching this movie have become blurred,and for this dialogue between cinematic form and narrative with public give this movie an extreme kind of unoiqness.sir pls respond

With the complicated narrative structure, I think Ali was just trying to skip all the boring family ‘social drama’ bits without detailing those scenes too much. Flashback allowed him that liberty. I cannot, however, defend his use of flashback in a flashback for Jordan’s enlightenment at the dargah. That bit was unnecessary.

for me the movie was a so so , could not figure out untill much later ….
the movie for all its greatness fails in its characters when they seem like paper floating around in the air, going in the direction, the wind takes them .. Jordan even after reaching the heights of success , seems like the powerless college kid … if she needed him when he is sick, what stops him from taking a break … his mentor who seemed like a well wisher was behaving like an agent , worried about cancelled concerts … some love stories are doomed, this one was the case of not trying even ….

I am a regular reader of your blog and i appreciate you slightly off the center point of view .
As far is this movie is concerned , I walked in with huge expectations and left with a feeling that it is better than the regular fare being served in Bollywood ,(Ra.one,Bodyguard,Ready,). Suffice to say i was mighty disappointed & Not because i didn’t like the movie . I was disappointed because

1) Rahman gave him more than a dozen songs worthy of an epic and which covers about an hour of the movie and which had epic stuff like Sadda Haq and Nadaan parindey and yet he couldn’t come up with a story or a narration to hold the story or couldn’t come up with the scenes required to make songs like Sadda Haq work.If only he had got that right ,
2) Naming the movie Rockstar was a bad move ,The title especially combined with songs &lyrics and trailers gave the impression ,The movie being about a rock musician rather than another love story.
3)His characterization of Heer was very confusing ,She is shown to be a strong independent women who has spirit ,But her choices show her to be otherwise.Generally in Imtiaz Ali movies the female character would be a special fare but in this it sadly fizzes out.
4).And he got the casting wrong big time with Nargis.Not that she wasn’t good to look at on the big screen.Sadly there is only one female who has the acting prowess to pull off a role like this ,But she is over 30 (Vidya Balan) .
5)The movie had the potential to be an EPIC love story of our times but sadly doesn’t rise beyond the average Bollywood fare

Also Ranbir was immense ,He carried the movie on his shoulders and as you said if only the the female lead was half as good as him.

Ironically , The notion of “one needs to know the pain of love to be a true musician ” came for the first time in the movie “Baiju Bawra” and in that movie the pain of the love gave birth to the song “O Duniyake Rakhwale” immortalized by the legendary Rafi and in this to “Sadda Haq” and ” Nadaan Parindey” ,Funny how things work out .

The movie goes onto prove the notion that there are few directors making quality movies that justify the score Rahman has to offer.(Rockstar,Delhi-6,A spurt of a Tamil movies) .If only the movie had matched its music ,what a treat we would have had on our hands.

This is something that struck me like an epiphany during my second viewing of the film- Doesn’t everything around Jordan look so caricature-ish? The ridiculously stereotyped record label owner Dhingra Sahab, who is shown to possess all the possible cliches we associate an Indian pop-music mogul with. Even his fans for that matter. He is mobbed by teenyboppers chanting his name, the exact, perfect “Rockstar-fan-frenzy” kind. Also the media- all appear like card board cut outs. No depth, no empathy. Bad, fake people.They don’t affect us, nor do they affect Jordan anymore. Only few genuine characters float, who apart from the lead are Khatara bhai, Ustaad Jamil Khan and probably, Jordan’s sister. Imtiaz plays with these cut-outs almost like a master Puppeteer does with his string puppets. And probably this line in “Phir se udd chala” completes the circle –

“Sheher ek se gaaon ek se, Log ek se Naam ek ..”

As if the bird has taken flight to some unknown distant neverland into the sky, and the more he flies, the more meaningless and bland the world he left behind looks like.

It looks like everyone seems to have missed the irony in the fact that their love affair started out as a list-making exercise of socially tabooed things, and eventually when their love matured, they ended up breaking one of the biggest social customs: disregarding the institution of marriage. The ‘Be-careful-what-you-ask-for’ irony was pretty apparent in this story, but this other one was subtle.

amazingly bang on…. hvnt seen Mausam and have heard a lot of flak about it.. so was a bit sceptical weather you are canning this when you started off drawing parallels! But then I dint want the piece to end… just what it was… except perhaps I felt you cannot write about this movie without mentioning Mohit Chauhan 🙂

Good review Baddy! Just saw the file after all the hype and I hated the film.. Too silly and simplistic but great music though! I googled to see your review..:( Nice to see so many fans of your review – Chota 🙂

Hi, very nicely written review..I must say 🙂 but you have wasted your precius words and time on reviewing as I think ‘Rockstar’ was the most hyped and overrated film of the years 2011. Fortunately I never went to see this movie in theatre and yesterday saw it on cable tv. I love bollywood movies and can see any brainless movie, but then when I start to see so much appreciated movie, it gave me nothing except the immature feeling. I actually noted down some points, but after some time I stopped that too because the foolishness reached heights. Only 2 things have saved this film- A.R.Rehman Music, Ranbir Kapoor’s Acting skill . I am so disappointed after watching ‘Rockstar’, instantly I felt like to tell someone my opinion and here I found your website. Thank you very much 🙂 Regards

Amazing review of an amazing movie. Janardhan promises Heer that he is going to help her exhaust all her forbidden “keedas” very early on in the movie, not realizing that he himself will become her most desired forbidden fruit as it were.exhausting this desire/keeda would cost her ,her marriage and ultimately her life and lead him on a roller coaster of pain. That he can not live outside their make believe world of love,in the shadow of pristine white sheets (“jee nahin paoonga main”)is the cause if his angst and his great music.

I finally got around to reading vikram seth’s An equal music and got weirdly reminded of this movie.. Probably something to do with all that love lost and regained (if only briefly) in european cities. 🙂

That’s the thing with this movie, people either absolutely HATE it or absolutely LOVE it! There is no middle ground here….that we are still talking about it just shows that Rockstar truly grabbed every one’s attention and how!!

both films feature a malady that is healed not through medicine but by the magic of love

she is literally unable to survive without him

That is why it’s a mistake that, after Jordan visits a bedridden Heer, her mother exults that her blood count is better. Such mundaneness has no business in this realm of magic. Heer has become better simply because Jordan is near her

When I saw Rock Star (I was not following this blog then) one of the things that bothered me most was that Heer’s Aplastic Anemia / Blood count becomes better not by a blood transfusion but by the prescence of Jordan. It then seemed to me as laughably silly as some of those old movies where in the climax, at the highest note of a shrill devotional song in front of a temple, a light comes out of the deity’s eyes and magically cures the loved one’s disease. Now I saw it explained under the Tamasha review as Imthiaz Ali’s “romantic conceit” and so came here ( to find out more ) where it is explained as magical realism. Well its so confusing sometimes to know when something is magical realism and when its just plain ludicrous : I don’t suppose there is an answer. Ive had the same problem with books. For instance, I found the mild magical realism in 1Q84 enjoyable but ‘Kafka on the Shore’ was too much to digest.

Though I did not like Rock Star much, this is a lovely review. Some of the best writing in this blog is for the Imthiaz Ali movies.

That’s an interesting comment, Tonks. May jot in more on Rockstar later maybe, I loved it…

It’s not to be viewed with a scientific prism but more as a musicians journey (it helps if one is a rahmaniac like me…)

As for the ‘magical realism’ bit, not supporting it, but as science evolves, the limitations of conventional science are exposed more. Eg Whilst most of modern physics works with the bigger particle, it doesn’t work for the smaller particle eg even the hydrogen particle can’t be explained ….

How could you say the Rumi quote was the ugliest thing in the movie??When its an impossible love ..you do desire a world far away from the “Sahi” and “Galath”!You are entitled to your opinion though…horrified nevertheless!

I re-read your review everytime I watch the movie BR. and I must say something has been bothering me. your comparision of heer and jordan to animals. animals aren’t discerning. But Jordan literally can’t do it with anyone else even the hottie that is Aditi Hydari’s character.

Both of them are the purest, most distilled form of human love. Their love transcends petty human annoyances. It is everyone else who (forgive the profanity) bangs anything with legs that are animals.

she comes close to declaring her feelings for Jordan while dressed up in blood-red bridal finery – he wonders aloud, laughing, if she hasn’t fallen for him, and her eyes mist up as she deflects the question.